The present invention relates to a locking mechanism and more particularly, to a locking mechanism which can be applied to various devices having a member to be locked such as an operating lever, so that the member to be locked can be locked at a predetermined position such as a neutral position.
In the conventional various equipments such as a construction equipment and a transporter, an operating lever which is provided to a fixing member such as a housing is used in order to operate hydraulic valves without steps for operating swinging arms of the construction equipment, or the like. Further, an operating lever capable of rotating around two axes crossing with each other is used in order to operate two or more objects to be operated with one operating lever, or in order to operate so as to rotate one object around two axes crossing with each other.
An operational force applied to the above described operating lever is directly transmitted, or transmitted via a means for transmitting the operational force, such as a control cable or a rod, to the object to be operated. The operating lever is set at the neutral position when an operator leaves a seat.
Such conventional devices having an operating lever have no means for locking the operating lever at the neutral position. Therefore, when an operator or the like hits the operating lever with elbow or the like by mistake, the swinging arms dangerously begin to move.
An object of the invention is to provide a locking mechanism having two rotational members assembled so as to cooperate with each other so that the locking state can be released only by moving specific one of the rotational members.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a locking mechanism applied to a device having a member to be locked such as an operating lever so that an operator can easily lock the member to be locked when he leaves a seat.